Songs that People Mistakenly Think are About Drugs
Music is a form of art. Art is interpreted differently by each person. So, to some of you, these songs are about drugs. If that's how you interpret them or relate to them, then that's what they mean to you. Cool.During different points in my life, I thought most of these songs were about drugs. These songs are widely believed and debated to be about drugs. However, the artists have been on record saying that was not their intention for the song.
I still believe a song or two on this list are about drugs, but the songwriter is using "art" to disguise it. I think they just deny it because they didn't want to deal with the backlash. Especially during the time a lot of these songs came out, it could have been career suicide for the band.
John didn't always speak straightforwardly in public. He often enjoyed being obtuse and leaving others guessing. While it's very likely the inspiration for the song began with his son's drawing, John's ideas when writing it were most likely influenced by LSD. The similarities to describing a "trip" and using the letters for the name were intentional.
L.S.D. According to Lennon, the song came from his child's drawing. He saw his kid drawing a picture and asked what he was drawing. His kid replied, "It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds."
Jimi Hendrix said this song was inspired by a dream - he dreamed he was walking under the sea, surrounded by a purple haze.
(Not long ago, I made a list with a similar idea, and I remember it was about a dream - Top 10 Songs the Author Denied Were About Drugs.)
A lot of people believe the song is about LSD or some other hallucinogen. Jimi claims it's a love song.
Some think it's about heroin use. If you watch when this song is played in the movie The Wall, you'll understand the song.
I think this is one of the songs that applies to my reference in the description box about some songs really being about drugs, but the artist denies it for various reasons. I think this song is about growing a marijuana plant, then rolling it up (party dress - zig-zag or rolling paper) and smoking it. Her "last dance." But according to Tom, it's a goodbye love song.
Meth. The band's drummer John Densmore claims Jim wrote the song for a girl he was breaking up with.
The original version (Pass The Kouchie by Mighty Diamonds) IS about cannabis. However, this version, sung by children, was changed. This version is about hungry children sharing what little food they have.
People thought the "little green bag" is marijuana. It's not. It's money. American dollars, at that.
Looking back on the track for a little green bag, just to some kind of guy.
This one's funny to me. A lot of Deadheads swear the word "terrapin" is a play on the word "tripping." According to the band, the song is about a storyteller on a (train?) journey.
You youngsters probably don't know this, but "Norwegian Wood" is, or was, a slang term for marijuana. The band swears it's not about pot, though.
This one's ridiculous. Just because it has "stone" in it?
With "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," I have the problem that the lyrics are just way too vague and cryptic to get something different than drugs out of them. Even with the band denying it, it feels as if they described an LSD trip, which in combination with the title makes me highly skeptical of the group's official statement.
In this song, however, we get a clear storyline, one that cannot be interpreted as being about drugs. It's rather a depressing take on the loss of childhood and on evanescence. It's about an immortal dragon who likes to play with a young boy, his best friend, but the boy grows older and is no longer interested in the dragon, who is left behind, living forever alone. That's in no way drug-related. The title is just a poor choice of words.
According to songfacts.com, "Lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong wrote this about a time when he was suffering from insomnia (hence the album title). It was just after his wife had one of their first children, and the baby would keep him up. He used to stay up through the night and write songs like this and 'Jaded.'"
Not sure why people would think this was about drugs.
With its references to needles, many people assumed it was about heroin. During a concert in 2003, Eddie Vedder told the crowd that it was actually about his love for vinyl records.
